


Non-Euclidean

by Lassarina



Series: 2017 Sev and Rina Prompt Extravaganza [9]
Category: Persona 3
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 02:53:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11049810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: There is no reason the tower of Tartarus should stand.





	Non-Euclidean

There is no reason that the tower of Tartarus should stand.

Mitsuru has studied architecture, both in books and in real life. She has seen the Ise Shrine, the Burj Khalifa, the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Sagrada Familia, and the Imperial Palace, to name just a few. Out of curiosity, she took a college course in architecture her first year in high school, and she knows what goes into holding a building of this size and complexity together.

None of the laws of physics apply here.

 

She is the first to arrive, as usual, and she stares up at the eerily green-lit darkness that twists into the sky like a thousand Shadow tentacles woven into a Gordian knot. In the depths of her mind, Penthesilea stirs and she shivers. Her eyes trace the lines of the many staircases that twist and turn around the tower, bulging like malign growths.

She has never been farther than the entrance; she has Penthesilea's perceptions and Akihiko's descriptions to guide her, and the knows that the interior is no more logical than the exterior. Walls with no purpose cut the team off from progress, and worse, the interior of the tower shuffles each night, never the same twice. She cannot draw a map of this building, cannot commit it to paper. It makes her think of the horror stories of ancient monsters lurking in a dark city, waiting to devour the world.

She finds herself gripping her Evoker for comfort, and that causes the familiar panicked twinge down her spine as her body braces for the pain of drawing forth her Persona.

Will she be like this tower one day? No one knows what happens when someone who is not a natural Persona-user summons one; for all Mitsuru knows, she hastens her own death or madness every time she pulls the trigger. How can she know? Will her mind be like this tower, twisted and logically unable to support its own weight?

She hears chattering voices as the others approach, and takes a deep breath, drawing the icy clarity of her Persona around her like a cloak. Penthesilea wakes, and lies coiled in the depths of her mind, ready to be reborn.

Mitsuru turns to face the team with her mask firmly in place, and turns her attention entirely to the task at hand. She has no time for warped geometry now.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "architecture."


End file.
